The present invention generally relates to swings and more particularly to swings having weight-biased escapement-type drive motors for actuating the swing.
Swings are a common source of recreation, enjoyment and relaxation for children and adults, and actuator mechanisms to maintain the motion of swings with little or no effort required of the occupants are well known. It is also quite common to use such mechanically actuated swings to amuse and relax infants for a period of time allowing the parent to go about other activities while the child is swinging. Most of these mechanically actuated infant swings utilize a highly resilient main spring which must be tightly wound to provide sufficient biasing force to actuate the swing. Such devices are not only prone to mechanical breakdown and are difficult to wind, but they can also be safety hazards to small children in the event the spring should break or become detached. Such mechanisms also generate a loud noise which is undesirable since it would tend to wake a sleeping baby as it is being rewound.
A weight-biased motor is preferable from the standpoint of safety and convenience, and many weight-biased actuator motors for swings have been assembled in the past. For example, the following U.S. patents disclose weight-biased motors for driving swings: No. 389,834, issued to W. Caldwell; No. 461,541, issued to I. Bunker; No. 545,451, issued to J. Brunner; No. 1,300,680, issued to J. Wilson; and No. 2,272,310, issued to E. Walter. However, none of these prior art patents discloses an actuator mechanism which is compactly designed for use in infant swings and which are convenient to operate as well as portable for transportation and storage.